Home - Caroline Lee

bogan pride etc.

2008-10-03T18:44:37Z

Oh it’s already the start of October (birthday month of many loved ones and Melbourne Festival time…sweeeeet…) and lots has been happening.

On Monday 6th, on SBS at 9pm, Bogan Pride starts screening. Bogan Pride is a comedy musical (!) television series written by and starring Rebel Wilson. Rebel, Tony Ayres and Michael McMahon produced, it was directed by Peter Templeman and the DOP was Brent Crockett. Tony Bartuccio choreographed the dance sequences. They were an amazing and wonderful team. Rebel plays Jennie Cragg, a bogan whose mother has got so fat she can’t extract herself out of her recliner-rocker, meaning that Jennie needs to find $10,000 for her mother’s stomach stapling operation. I play Erin La Mont, who is the (slightly demonic) leader of a Christian girls youth group and thus, together with my assistant Gaylene, the spiritual guide of Jennie and her two bf’s Amy-Lee Lee and Nigella.

It was a fantastic piece to work on, the main cast got on really well, I loved the opportunity to play in a comedy and also really loved the singing and the dancing (because there are two musical numbers in every episode…) Tony Bartuccio was just fantastic to work with. We had a screening at ACMI last week of the first two episodes, which was quite nerve-wracking and intense: seeing yourself for the first time, up on a big screen, with about 500 other people…but it seemed to go well…people laughed a lot and said some lovely things afterwards…notwithstanding the fact that those comments were accompanied by liberal doses of champagne. So it goes to air publicly this coming Monday, and then I guess I’ll find out what everyone else thinks…unfortunately probably without the champagne.

Also, in case you missed this lovely bit of news, my novel, Stripped, is being published in parts in the literary journal Meanjin, which has also been very exciting and nerve-wracking. Sophie Cunningham has taken over the editorship of Meanjin and is doing a brilliant job of re-invigorating it, both in terms of form and content. My novel starts with the prologue, entitled The End, which is published in Volume 67, no. 2, June 2008; and the next part, which covers something like the next three chapters, is in Volume 67, no. 3, September 2008; and the next part is due to come out in December. It is possible to subscribe to Meanjin, so then you get each new instalment of my novel, together with lots of really wonderful other writing, delivered to you…and it’s also cheaper that way! And it’s also in lots of libraries.

Finally, I’m just about to start rehearsing a beautiful play called Care Instructions, which will be on at the Courthouse in Carlton, Nov. 19-29. The play is a “post-Beckettian tour-de-force set in a laundromat. Who remembers the thirteenth godmother from Sleeping Beauty: the uninvited guest by whose curse the princess fell asleep for a hundred years? Now she washes, waiting for her chance to ‘make another better wish.’ Care Instructions wrings every drop of polyphony from the scripted language; Marguerite Duras meets Gertrude Stein on a perfect drying day.” It’s written by Cynthia Troup, directed by Margaret Cameron and is performed by Liz Jones, Jane Bayley and myself. I can’t wait.

a watery week

2008-07-23T21:03:51Z

So yes, did the guest role in Satisfaction, which was a great experience, and I got to work with some fabulous people, although it was pretty gruelling emotionally...it took me a few days to fully recover my equilibrium after the long day, a good couple of hours of which were spent sobbing in character.

I've also been recording (onto talking book) a wonderful young adult title called Mahtab's Story by Libby Gleeson, which tells the story of a young Afghani girl and her family fleeing Afghanistan and making the long, long journey to Australia. It made me cry when I read it at home, and in the studio.

And then I saw Mamma Mia; it was great, but Meryl Streep is absolutely AMAZING! She was fabulous all the way through, had so much depth and yet lightness at the same time, and never got flippant or dismissive. And then she sang 'The Winner Takes it All,' oh my god...it was incredible. She wrang those words out her soul, with bitterness and love and tenderness and regret. I was a very wet wreck. She's always been an inspiration to me, one of a handful of high profile actors who I admired and aspired to emulate from an early age...and I still do. What a woman!

Finally there has been definite progress on my novel, Stripped. After a few months of concentrated effort, and quite a lot of angst (the novel is about death, after all...and sex...but mostly death)I gave Sophie Cunningham, the editor of Meanjin, a completed draft of the entire novel and that felt pretty satisfying and quite significant. Just to hold the whole printed manuscript in my hand was much more of a buzz than I had expected. There is of course more work to be done, but the end is near and it is great to imagine that story, which I began in 2002 (I think) being completed and out of my head. Space for new things...wow...

Oh and one more thing. I finally planted the quince tree, guerrilla gardening style, in the nature strip directly over the road from my front door. I've had the quince tree for about a month, but had to plan my strategy quite carefully, gathering all the correct equipment...stakes, council-style ties to stake the tree, council-style mulch (taken from a convenient pile just down the road,) a new bag of dirt, compost, seaweed emulsion, tacks, scissors, hammer and instructions from the Gardening Australia website. Finally everything was collected. A friend had cancelled a coffee date with me, so then I had the perfect lazy mid-morning opportunity. I'd also planned the outfit, being a true actress, and so donned my boiler suit (a full set of overalls) so as to look innocuously council-like (although the bright red french gardening shoes just might have been a giveaway...as is my propensity to run when happy...a group of serious-looking workers spied me as I was running back to the garden to collect something I'd forgotten and made comments about jogging and exercise...NOT very council-like on-the-job activities...) I hastily carried all equipment to the site, dug the hole, planted our beautiful, public fruit tree, and then watered it in well. Just water though, no tears.

somewhere else, close to home

2008-06-27T18:19:37Z

A couple of days ago I went, for the first time, to Central City Studios for a rehearsal and wardrobe call for a guest role in a television series which I’m doing in a few weeks. These film and television studios are in Docklands and, as if the name Central City Studios wasn’t glamorous and other-sounding enough, the location is incredible. Almost as soon as I passed under the railway lines which divide the old city from the new, and passed by Telstra Dome, I felt like I was in an new and unknown place. It was exciting. I drove through a landscape of high-rise buildings, palm trees, trams and asphalt, all of it encircled by the Bolte Bridge.

Once security let me in to the site, I could see there were a number of huge buildings, kind of like aeroplane hangars, and these are the studios. As I wandered around, trying to work out where I was going, I caught various different and beautiful angles of the in-construction Melbourne Eye. Don’t know if anyone will ever go on it, but it is an oddly humanising element amongst all the industria. So was the sight of a lone bicyclist, riding along the bike path down there next to the water, hundreds of cars and trucks roaring through the sky behind him.

There must have been a film shot there very recently which was set in a forest, because I kept coming across skips filled with tree trunks, large stumps lying against the buildings, and lots of branches everywhere. And so much activity! Trucks and cranes and all sorts of equipment coming and going, it was fabulous.

Found where I was going eventually and spoke to wardrobe and then rehearsed the scene with the other actor, the director and the line producer. We had nearly two hours and when we were done I felt like I knew the scene, what was going to happen and also had established a bit of rapport with the director and the other actor. That was great because the scene involves a kiss, amongst other things, and obviously that level of intimacy can be awkward with a stranger!

Then today we had a read-through of the whole episode with most of the cast, and so I got to drive down there and see that beautiful foreign landscape all over again. Today I really wished I’d thought to take my camera. And who knows when I’ll see it again, because the scene is being shot on location, not at the studios. The read-through was fun, partly because there’s a number of people I’ve worked with before in the cast, so it was great to catch up with them, and also because people laughed at our scenes but also found them moving. Which is how they're meant to be. It's great writing.

Returned home after a detour via Prahran for a casting for a commercial, and had a brief rest on the couch in the afternoon sun, feeling like I’d come back from a quick little trip to somewhere else.

seed(ling)s

2008-05-26T06:45:59Z

This week I planted an apple tree in my garden. It is a wonderful apple tree which has two different sorts of apples grafted onto the one tree, a greeny/yellow apple and a red one. This will join the white nectarine I already have growing. I also planted a blood plum tree, a clematis and some bulbs: irises, tulips and freesias. I have always wanted to have my own little orchard, but was further inspired by a website www.fallenfruit.org It’s a start, and I have my eye on the nature strip over the road from me. The fruit trees will flower in the Spring and will produce fruit in Summer. The bulbs will flower in the Spring.

In the mail, I received a copy of the latest Meanjin (a literary journal), in which the prologue of my novel has been printed. I was proud. I am working hard on the novel and it may be that more of it will be published, either in Meanjin or elsewhere.

I finished work on a television series and also recording a talking book, The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton (I had previously recorded Kate’s first book The Shifting Fog) both of which were very satisfying projects. Met some new and wonderful people and had a lot of fun.

Right now, here in Melbourne on a sunny day, everything is fresh and clear, the leaves have turned and are falling, there is more space. Nature is becoming dormant (the work situation not so much) but there are lots of lovely things brewing, bubbling away, settling in the ground. I love this time of year, it can be a bit melancholy, but it’s beautiful and full of promise.

if you need someone to pour your gravy

2008-03-21T08:12:27Z

I love my job.

During the last two days I have been shooting an ad, for television, and it has been exhausting and challenging, but also lots of fun. After both days of shooting I got home feeling really satisfied about having done a good day's work. This may sound strange, for after all it was an ad, but what happened was a really strong sense of working together with a team of great people, all of whom are very skilled at their jobs, creating a tiny gem which tells a story in words and pictures. I think I was lucky, because this ad was probably more atmospheric, moody and perhaps film-like than a lot of other ads, and the director, Glendyn Ivin, and his producer Jane Liscombe were fantastic (and indeed are now going on to work on Glendyn's first feature.)

Making an ad presents a lot of challenges for everyone concerned, this is primarily because it is expensive and so there's a lot of pressure to get everything right in a very short time. This ad was for a product related to the kitchen and cooking and the story and style of the ad was that it was a documentary, and so they were filming me but the film crew were present behind the camera. The first day's shooting was of me and the second day's shooting was of the product.

So, during the first day we told the story of Stephanie in her house and in her kitchen, all revolving around the product. At the start of the day, 7.30 am, there were still a couple of unresolved issues about the character's clothing. As you can imagine issues about the look of an ad are always critical. The slightly tricky thing is that there is constant negotiation, on set, for the duration of the shoot, between the client, who is representing the product; the agency, who is the intermediary between the client and the creative team; and the producer and director. In this instance that was about seven or eight people, all of whom had an opinion. So this negotiation began with the outfit, on which finally a compromise was reached, and kept happening, particularly on the more complex shots. So we would do maybe 17 or 18 takes of a shot, or I think even once we did 21, to satisfy everyone's concerns. It was quite gruelling and required a great deal of concentration and stamina and calm. But the thing was we absolutely got there in the end, got the shots we wanted and they wanted, and also had some fun and kept buoyant, and that's what made it satisfying.

The second day was easier in a way, because I was only being a hand which poured gravy on food, and so it required no acting. However it held its own challenges. The selection of me to do this job was arbitrary really, because if they had needed a very beautiful hand they would have used a hand model, but they didn't and so offered the work to me. The crazy thing was that it turned out that in fact I was very good at this job, which entailed pouring gravy in a very, very specific manner onto different types of food. It was extremely nerve-wracking, as again it was a collaborative affair (where exactly the gravy had to fall, how it had to fall etc etc), and also because there were a limited amount of dishes of food available, and if I had messed it up too many times it could have been terrible: expensive, time-consuming and very tense.

It went like this: I had to pour at the correct speed (each gravy being a bit different) beginning from an exact point between the potatoes and the end of the meat (for example) and then follow the line of the steak or the curve of the chicken legs, just allowing a sexy dollop to fall between the two legs of chicken (!) and then finishing up at the end with another dollop, but not too big and not too small and then place the packet down in the exact same spot every time with no drip and no wobble and keeping everything in frame and at the right angle. While it was silent and twenty people were watching. Again huge concentration required, nerves of steel and a pedantic and precise character (which fortunately I have.) And again, it was pretty satisfying. Not as much fun as the day before, but still surprisingly fine.

So there we are: more good acting experience, working with some lovely people and the discovery of a new skill; if you need someone to pour your gravy you know where to find me.

home

2008-02-10T06:17:24Z

As it happened, the weather was very beautiful on my last morning in Vancouver. It had kept snowing through the night, so again I had that wonderful thing where I woke up and the world was highlighted with white. It felt really special, like a final glimpse of the gorgeousness of the northern winter before returning to the other side of the world. The sky cleared early and as we walked to the bus stop the sun was shining and everything was gleaming and crisp. There were glorious views of the mountains to the north (including Grouse Mountain) which were peeking above low-lying mist and cloud.

All the mornings activities went pretty much to plan, although I was very teary after saying goodbye to Sarah, and I found myself happily checked in and ready at Vancouver airport with plenty of time to spare. There was even time for a few phone calls, including one to Mum and Dad, which was very lovely, as I hadn't spoken to them for ages. As the flight took off there was a great view of Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, the Inside Passage up towards Alaska, and all the other little islands down the coast.

Los Angeles airport, LAX, was its usual purgatorial self. It is just horrible, isn't it? Huge, confusing, unkempt and not particularly safe. Unlike major airports in Asia, for example. So at LAX, as is often the case, we were confined to a tiny section of the airport with fairly primitive facilities and opportunities for retail amusement. We're talking one tiny combined sandwich/coffee/snack/bar shop thing, one newsagent and one tiny duty free outlet. To make matters worse they are actually in the process of "upgrading" the little section from which the Qantas flight was departing, so there were patches of bare concrete, lots of hanging cables and it was cold and badly lit. And I had five hours there.

Fortunately I was reasonably prepared and so settled down in a quiet spot with a cup of truly disgusting sweet syrupy stuff, which was had never come even close to being the vanilla cappuccino it was supposed to be, and absorbed myself in learning lines and the oh-so-boring-but-oh-so-appropriate job of organising, sorting and trashing emails.

The fifteen hour trip from Los Angeles to Melbourne was as fine as these long trips in economy class can be, although the subsequent queuing at customs, waiting for bags and then the long, long wait to declare the tea in my suitcase nearly pushed me over the edge. I kept having to remind myself to breathe.

However when I finally got through and was walking towards the glass doors to the taxi rank and the outside world, I suddenly got a whiff of air from outside and it totally overwhelmed me...it smelt so deeply familiar: sweet and summery and clean and light and open. It was really unexpected, but I totally knew I was home.

So the plan now is to settle back in Melbourne for a while, enjoying being at home while also holding on to the happiness and calmness of the trip, and see what happens. I'm juggling a few options for work right now, and within the next few weeks should know better what the shape of the next six months will be. I probably won't write this blog so frequently, much as I have loved it; rather I am going to try to use the morning writing time routine, which has solidified while I've been away, to work on other writing projects which need my energy. It has been a great delight though, writing it, and lots of my pleasure comes from the knowledge that there's a bunch of people who have been reading it regularly and enjoying it. Thank you, and we shall speak again soon.

nature day

2008-02-08T02:01:36Z

Yesterday (we had previously decided) was Nature Day, so Sarah and I went for an expedition up Grouse Mountain.

(Monday was saying goodbye to the gang, moving from the amada to Sarah's, feeling a bit blue, reading Tennessee Williams, and having Sarah's wonderful home-cooked crab pasta. Tuesday was hanging out with Sarah, talking, having coffee, seeing some of the neighbourhood, talking, discovery of creamy earl grey tea [will perhaps rival my addiction to madagascan vanilla tea] creation and consumption of another amazing home-cooked meal and the weather channel.)

We set out at 10am, reasonably early for a day off, and caught the bus downtown. Nice coffee had to be purchased and then we made our way to the Seabus and went across the water to North Vancouver. Then I did a little bit of present shopping at the Lonsdale Market, and then we caught the bus up to Grouse Mountain. When we got out of the bus at the bottom of the mountain park proper, which only took about twenty minutes, there was already a lot of snow around and it was snowing, quite big flakes, which was very pretty. As we got the gondola up the mountain it continued to snow and when we got to the top there was not much visibility, but what we could see looked great.

It is possible to ski, snowboard, snowshoe and ice-skate at Grouse Mountain, although the few ice-skaters were having a hard time with the perpetual falling snow. So Sarah and I hired some snowshoes, as per the plan, not really being equipped for anything else. I'd never used snowshoes before, they are sort of a metal web which you attach to your shoes to make it easier to walk over snow without falling into it. Although as we quickly discovered, having a bit of trouble at first finding the snowshoe/walking tracks, it is still very possible to fall quite a way into a snowdrift, even with snowshoes on! Going down steeper slopes can also be challenging. We were clumsy and ungainly and this was not helped by how much we were laughing. But once we found the tracks it was much better and so we set off up the mountain.

It was really fun, we only saw a couple of people and so for the most part had the trees and the snow and all the wonderous shapes and patterns to ourselves. It was very beautiful and quiet, and there was so much space in all that whiteness.

So we went up for quite a while and then down and then through a wooded part around what may have been a lake, and all this time it kept snowing and then at some stage as we were on our way back it got much colder, although we were fine because we had lots of warm layers. When we finally got back it was about four o'clock and so we needed a hot chocolate and a little sit down before embarking on the trip home.

It was lucky we did, because the trip home turned out to be a bit of a marathon. You see, even though it does snow at least twice during most winters in Vancouver, and sometimes more, it seems that the city is not really prepared for a lot of snow or a lot of below-zero temperatures. It's a bit like how Melbourne homes are often not really suitable for a cold winter. There's a bit of denial going on, a bit of budgeting. So, when we got off the gondola and were waiting for the bus, the two bus drivers who were there came over to the waiting group and said that on the way up the mountain there had not been a lot of traction and their wheels had skidded and slid and they did not feel happy about taking a load of passengers back down that road until it had been ploughed and salted. They had called the snow plough in, but until then we would have to wait.

In fact it wasn't such a long wait, perhaps half an hour, (I was only just starting to ruminate on the fact that I had to catch my plane home the next day...) and then everyone piled into one bus, which was going to take a slightly alternative route, and the bus driver made as many people as possible go to the back of the bus, which was slightly alarming, but he was great and we slowly and safely made our way down through the darkness, the snow and the slush. When we got down lower there was complete traffic chaos, so what with that and with having to walk a bit because of the alternate route, we finally made it back home about two hours later than planned.

A bath and some take-away food and some CSI Miami quickly restored our warmth and level of comfort, although not a great deal more was achieved. I found it rather difficult to rise from the couch.

This morning there will be cups of tea, packing, a quick dash downtown with Sarah, a sad goodbye, some ruminations on the wonderful time I have had, possibly some tears, a trip to the airport and then I shall enter the no-man's-land that is international travel. Wish me luck.

wrapping up

2008-02-05T02:48:48Z

One lovely and quite unexpected thing about Vancouver is the constant presence of sea-birds. I think they are mostly some variety of gull. Anyway in the mornings I can hear them squwarking from the tops of the buildings over the road and then at various times during the day I become aware of them in the soundscape of the city. It's great.

Also yesterday there was a beautiful sunrise and then a really clear view of the snowy mountains to the north of the city. All day they kept peeping round buildings, reminding me of time and space and nature.

The last two performances went really well. During the second this great thing happened where a family was coming out of the library towards the end of the show. I could see them out of the corner of my eye...there was about six of them. They slowly made their way right through the centre of the space and as they got closer to Simon and me they realised that something not very nice was going on. So they stopped and watched, clearly wanting to make sure that everything was okay. I was just getting to the part where my character is offering sexual favours to Steve, so dropped my voice even more and came really close to him, trying to avoid letting anyone hear what I was saying.

But they must have heard because there was a great shout of laughter from the audience and I heard later that the father, upon hearing my words, had been really shocked and had bustled the family away from us and gone to speak to security about it. It was a good moment for the audience and also fantastic to know that people care enough about other people to intervene.

The other great thing that I found out later was that two separate people, independently, who had seen the play as part of the regular audience with the headphones on, then decided that they wanted to see it from the outside and were sitting at separate tables in the space during the last show, reading the newspaper, having a coffee and watching us and the audience and the life and world around the play. I think that's pretty cool.

Finally, the Back to Back team started the dancing off at the PUSH Festival after party. Simon and Sonia busted some excellent moves, and Margaret (one of Jim's other selves) really came into her own...it's clear that all that step training really does help...Actually Margaret and Leanne Carol (a new alter ego of mine) stayed on the dance floor for quite a long time. I'm not sure that Leanne Carol is a very good influence on Margaret. She is, let's be gentle, a little rough around the edges. We're not talking soft pink velour pantsuit here, more like leopard-print lycra leggings. But they certainly had a lot of fun together and most of it was clean. It was a very satisfactory ending to the tour...Although there is a plan for one final breakfast this morning...of course. We need to eat pancakes, make a few more speeches and say goodbye.

vancouver day

2008-02-03T03:31:23Z

It's an unfortunate tendency in life that if you go on a long, interesting and somewhat tiring expedition in search of something and then eventually find it the expedition feels rather more glamorous and rewarding than if you do not get what you were after. I know, "it's all about the journey" but actually I would much rather have found the Tennessee Williams play I was looking for yesterday morning than not have found it.

The expedition was, notwithstanding all of this, a reasonably good one. I began by walking towards the water (in a different direction to that which we had gone the day before when we went on a small trip on the cutest little tug boaty type thing you have ever seen over to Granville Island for doughnuts.) I went towards the port proper and the downtown railway station, and then over towards Gastown (where the sailors and their ladies used to hang out in the old days.) I was going to the slightly unfortunately named "Biz Books," specialists in books about the performing arts.

Alas, they only had the Williams play in a rather huge and heavy tome entitled Great Plays of the World Stage or something like that and it cost $44.75 before tax and so it was not really ideal for the travelling artiste. I was then directed to a second hand bookshop called Macloud's, but before I got there I found a handsome building to photograph, was asked three times for money, and discovered another second hand bookshop called Criterion Books, where I had to climb a flight of rickety stairs. When I got to the top the bookshop was so stuffed to the brim with books, not just on shelves but all over the floor, that the only path was a windy body-width gap between all the piles. It kind of looked promising, especially when the man behind the counter took me unerringly to the theatre piles. I let him do the looking. My play was not there; well, probably not.

Macloud's was great, really quite a large shop filled floor to ceiling with books. It was rather reminiscent of Foyles in London. I was assisted by a very friendly woman who had to fetch and then climb a rickety wooden ladder to peer through the Tennessee Williams selection. They had quite a few of his plays, but not the one I was looking for. She then directed me to another second hand bookshop, also not too far away. This shop sold books and jazz. Nice, although the man behind the counter was having trouble with the record player. They also did not have the play.

The final recommendation I had been given was a remainder shop for books. I had actually questioned this recommendation as I know very well that in my country sending someone to such a place in search of a play would be silly. She had insisted however, and so I found the shop and discovered that remainder shops in Vancouver are spookily similar to those in Melbourne and that indeed it did not have my play.

Enough. I was aware of the beginnings of fractiousness at the edges of my mind. I abandoned the search for the play, hard though that was, especially because I was not successful, and set about finding something to eat.

Walked back down to Gastown in a leisurely manner, heading towards a couple of places I thought might be interesting for lunch. I was enjoying the fact that this neighbourhood was older and more seedy than anything I'd seen in Vancouver so far (except perhaps the basement toilets at the library where we're performing in which crack is smoked in the cubicles) (seriously) when I suddenly found myself in a really nasty street and feeling quite nervous. It's the middle of the day I told myself, but it didn't help. It was scary; felt like I could've had a knife pulled on me at any moment.

One of the places I had thought to investigate for lunch was down an alleyway near there, so I abandoned that plan and quickly and firmly headed towards what looked like a nicer street in the distance. Just as suddenly I emerged into a street selling designer furniture at ridiculous prices. I found my other restaurant and replenished myself with a really delicious spaghetti with broccoli, fresh tomatoes and toasted pine-nuts in a gorgonzola sauce.

Made my way back to the library via Chinatown and a truly beautiful building called the Sun Tower, which was built on a hill, in 1911 (when it was the highest building in the British Empire) with odd angles, half-naked nymphs supporting the cornice half-way up the exterior, and a really pretty blue roof.

The show went well, we are now much more at home in this new space, understanding how it feels and works for the play, and we had a large crowd due to a good review yesterday in the Vancouver Sun. It is a complete contrast to the chaos of the Eaton Centre in Toronto, being less busy, less noisy and more focussed. As a result the show feels quite intense and intimate, and towards the end, more menacing. It's a bit like we're working on a film set, whereas the Eaton Centre was more like television. Daytime television.

The day ended with a wonderful meal with Sarah and two of her friends from Vancouver at a place that does modern Japanese tapas. It was really wonderful food and lots of fun. I was so relaxed upon my return to the amada that the one hundred or so dolled up and revved up teenagers on the footpath outside the nightclub and the thumping music from within the nightclub made not a ripple on the sea of my serenity.

tourists and touring

2008-02-01T03:06:07Z

A quintessential tourist moment:
I went to the supermarket down the road which is named, with great imaginative flair, Choices. Despite the name it is a pretty good place, with a lot of organic products and really nice salads and sandwiches. They have this long aisle with shelves of dispensers containing things like oats, lentils, rice, all that. I was very excited to find that they had about eleven different varieties of muesli, including a lovely looking organic one. To get it out of the dispenser you place a plastic bag under the (rather wide—supersize?) opening of the dispenser and push down on a lever and thus your bag is filled. I, of course, had some things in my hands (didn't put them down) and when I performed that series of actions, first I did not have the bag in the correct position and second I had not anticipated the amount or speed of falling organic muesli with linseeds, almonds and flame-dried raisins.

Some went into the bag. Quite a bit went all over the floor and into this shelf thing below.

I looked at it all for a moment but didn't know what to do and felt really stupid, so somewhat shamefacedly I left the aisle and continued shopping. (Cowardly, I know) Then I get to the check out and the girl asks me what's the code for the muesli. "Code?" I ask, nervously. "Yeah, the code," she said, "you gotta go get the code."

I had no idea what she was talking about but I leave the check-out, return to the scene of the crime and what do I find but a young man, on his hands and knees with a dust-buster, taking all the things off all the shelves and cleaning away my muesli disaster. Oh boy. I approach, searching for some fucking list of numbers. He looks up. I'm looking right at the muesli. I have guilty written all over my face.

"Oh, hi," I say, in a slightly high-pitched voice. "I'm looking for the code...for the........muesli.............is this it? Here?" "Yeah, that's right," he says, with a lovely smile on his face. I pause. "I did that," I splurt out, "with the muesli, I'm so sorry, I just didn't understand how the thing worked and...." "Oh, that's alright," he said, "I was going to clean here anyway...."

What a sweetheart. I leave, feeling small, but much, much better.

***

With touring, I am discovering, there's always something that doesn't go to plan, notwithstanding extremely careful and meticulous preparation.

With alias Grace in KL it was the absence of registration marks for the set, so it meant that the set took about four hours longer to set up than planned; and also that the computer crashed, taking the entire lighting and sound plot into the void. In New York, with SMO, it was the freight; in Toronto, sound issues; here in Vancouver the lovely unexpected snow, that I was delighting in, held up the truck which was delivering all of our sound equipment, so that alternative and not entirely satisfactory arrangements had to be made on the fly. This, together with a few other unexpected hassles, meant that we were pretty rushed going into our opening and that our wonderful crew of Bernie, Phillip and Jo were holding an awful lot of anxiety and stress.

The space we are working in here, The Vancouver Library, is quite spectacular. The architects were Moshe Safdie & Associates with Downs/Archambault and Partners. It is a large, circular building, and is kind of a modern-day version of the Colisseum in Rome. It's gorgeous, lots of light, lots of space.

(Safdie has designed Habitat in Montreal, the National Gallery of Canada, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts addition, Quebec City's Museum of Civilization, the Ottawa City Hall and most recently the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts (across Homer Street from the Central Library).

Downs/Archambault has designed Canada Place, Kwantlen College in Langley, International Village in Vancouver, the YWCA Hotel in Vancouver, additions to Langara College and the Britannia Community Services Centre among other projects.)

It is a great space for the play, because not only is it stunning to look at, but also, like the other spaces we have used on this tour, it is a haven for the homeless and poor of the city because it has free public toilets and it's warm and relatively safe. Which is great for the play on many levels, but there are quite a large number of unstable people around and during the dress-rehearsal yesterday Jim was so freaked out by this guy who followed quite closely behind him and was swearing, that he actually had to drop out of character and make himself safe.

In the end, though, miraculously, our opening was really good. The performances were really solid, the sound was great (there's a fantastic intimacy which we can play with both aurally and physically in this space) and it all just came together and then floated, in that fabulous way that live performance can. We got a standing ovation, it was lovely.

We finished the evening off with a delightful dinner at the pub downstairs ('cos of Sonia's sore foot) and then some of us went off down the street in search of dessert and ended up at Templeton's, which is a truly fabulous diner with great food and excellent ambience. We had sundaes, milk-shakes, pear crumble, flambe bananas and frangelicos. Yep. A very satisfactory opening night.

ps. some images of Toronto and Vancouver now in the gallery (thanks again to Bernie Sweeney)

the (r)amada

2008-01-30T02:56:35Z

Things did not start well for this our last leg of the tour...Toronto to Vancouver.

To start with I was the brunt of a pursed-mouthed cranky older woman at check-in in Toronto (and this at 9am, mind you, and normally during tour time I'm still in my jimmy-jams at 9am, having a cup of tea, writing or doing yoga. I usually haven't spoken to anyone, let alone a nasty officious old bitch) so in her wisdom she decided to charge me $50 for my excess baggage. As far as the rule book is concerned she had every right to do this, my luggage being the vast amount of about 7 pounds over, but she handled it with maximum unpleasantness.

On the aeroplane, there were occasional bouts of turbulence and the accompanying announcements about seat belts etc. (turbulence is never very nice, and indeed we were all probably a little jumpier than most having experienced a rather nasty patch of turbulence during our flight from Melbourne to LA in which many people started screaming.) During a rather more vigorous patch of turbulence late in the trip, as we approached Vancouver, the stewardess made something like the following announcement: As you will see the captain has turned on the seat belt sign. Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts. This is for your own safety. Please obey the seat belt signs. We are approaching the area where the other aeroplane had a problem. I was so shocked, I laughed. And there was a little wave of slightly hysterical laughter in our section of the plane, all of us presumably having visions of falling from the sky.

Fortunately this did not take place.

Then the (R)amada. (So classy that the "R" on the neon sign is not working) We had been warned. When Bruce (our director) got here last week after he left Toronto, he changed rooms, and he's not really like that. Me, yes; Jim, yes, but not Bruce. The women behind the front desk were stressed; there were all of us to deal with and also a woman ahead of us, (the artistic director of a festival in San Francisco) who was waiting to get into a new room as she had been unable to sleep until after 3am because her room was on the first floor right above the night club next door.

I was last to check in. Lucky last. My first designated room was on the first floor, near the nightclub, looking into a light well, so I gently asked if there was something higher up. My next room was towards the back of the hotel, with a tiny unopenable window which looked into a light well and the rooms of about fifteen other people. It stank of cheap deodoriser and was dark, gloomy, not particularly clean and very very depressing. I stuck it out for one night, but then after learning that most of the others not only had windows that opened but also had at least some natural light I decided to see if anything else was available. Mercifully I was able to change and now have air and light.

It may sound a bit princessy, and indeed I have interrogated myself about this, but I guess the thing is that because we are working, and because of the nature of our work, and also because it is the middle of winter, our hotel rooms become a real resting place, a haven. So not only is it quite important that we can sleep well and feel safe, but also we spend more time in these rooms than we would if we were travelling as tourists, especially in the mornings before our crazy days begin.

Then, finally, after that long and rather trying day of travel, we had a dinner and small welcoming reception, which was very lovely but also challenging, as it involved yet more crappy diner food, bad bad white wine and talking to lots of strangers. I found some chocolate biscuits and did my best.

Yesterday marked a slight upturn in mood, precipitated by a very reasonable breakfast at the Elbow Room with Simon, Sonia and Jim. Bruce had recommended it and, given his soft spot for a greasy diner, I had low expectations, but they use free-range eggs and it was actually pretty good. Best of all was that my dear friend Sarah who lives in Vancouver had told me about a coffee place just down the road and so we went there afterwards and oh boy oh boy oh boy that was a great moment. Definitely the best coffee I've had since leaving Melbourne. In the afternoon Jim, Simon and I went on this fabulous long walk around Stanley Park, following the sea-wall most of the way. We were accompanied by the delightful Stefan, director of a festival in Hanover which hosted Small Metal Objects last year. So we walked and chatted about all sorts of things and looked at the sky and the water and the boats and the bridge and the sand and the rocks and the ice and the trees and then we walked through the woods and saw lots of old trees and it was really great.

In the evening Sarah took me to a lovely Thai restaurant to soothe my desire for vegetables and we talked and ate up a storm. I got home and had a lovely bath and my contentment was not even marred by the discovery that I appear to be allergic to Vancouver, or something, as I have come out in a rather nasty rash on rather large portions of my legs. (Oh well, it can accompany the welt I have on my face as a result of being allergic to the tape which keeps our microphones in place. Attractive lady...) Then it started to snow, which looked so pretty through my nice big window, and indeed this morning it is still snowing, and everything is covered with a layer of whiteness, the sight of which fills me with child-like joy. Things are definitely on the up.

two show days

2008-01-27T15:36:00Z

Two show days are intense, and when they’re the last days you’re in a place there’s a lot of cramming of experiences into very small amounts of time.

Yesterday jo, sonia, simon and I went on a short ferry trip across the harbour to ward island, which is part of the Toronto islands, to have a walk and a coffee before the shows. For about half the trip the ferry had to crunch slowly through the ice which I’ve been admiring from the hotel window. It was wonderful to see all the sheets of ice up close and we revelled in the patterning of the all the different bits. It was pretty damn cold on the island, but it was truly lovely, very quiet and small, with not very many houses or people, and still covered with snow. We walked for a while along the boardwalk next tot the lake proper, which has waves and seems like the sea. There was the icy water, snow and bare trees and us. Wild and romantic.

Then caught a few bits of public transport uptown to collect phillip and my new pants from the gorgeous Egyptian woman who was altering them for us, did a quick bit of present shopping and then ran to the theatre to get ready for the shows.

As the week has progressed there has been more and more interest in the show and lots more people at the eaton centre, so performing has been getting increasingly intense, with more and more people watching us and the audience and just generally hanging around. It’s been fine, but quite full on for us. As far as we can tell from the reactions and what people tell us it has been going really well, and it seems that the setting and what’s happening around us is very fascinating for the audience, so that’s good, and puts it in perspective for us, makes it easier to handle.

After all that I was pretty tired and so headed back to the extremely comfortable and warm hotel room, drank red wine and watched the women’s finals of the Australian Open. Nice.

Today was another two show day, but with an even earlier start because the first show was at 1pm, so got up early, did yoga and instead of going skating with jimmy did a quick personal tour of some of the architectural delights of Toronto. It was so great. Saw BCE Place, designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill which actually does achieve the cathedral-like magnificence that the eaton centre merely aspires to. It is glorious. Then skipped uptown again to feast my eyes upon Daniel Libeskind’s excellent interpolation upon the Royal Ontario Museum, and Will Alsop’s Centre for Design, which is a huge white and black checkered box balanced on sticks.

It started to snow between the shows, and hasn’t yet stopped. This was a beautiful parting gift. I was very happy to see more snow, to watch it swirling through the air, to catch it and run in it. On the way home we passed this huge square which was filled with people and all sorts of things happening, including hundreds and hundreds of flowerpots filled with fire. These flower pots surrounded the square on this high walkway, and were also arranged on various metal contraptions and in various different shapes throughout the area: circles, huge balls of fire, moving tendrils and arches. Not only were they very spectacular, but the fires were tended by groups of enigmatic Frenchmen in long coats and formal hats. Sexy.

We wandered home through the lovely snow, in a vain attempt to get an early night. Whatever. I’ll sleep on the plane. Arrive refreshed and alert in Vancouver. Yuh huh.

discoveries

2008-01-25T15:39:03Z

out the window this morning the harbour was magnificent. the whole thing had a layer of ice on it, onto which the snow had fallen, (we had a whole lot more snow last night) and then there was an amazing patterning of cracks all over it. it was stunning.

yesterday phillip, jo, simon and I went up to the kensington market area. we found this great little coffee place where the guy roasts and blends his own beans. we sat in the front window on mis-matched laminex and vinyl chairs and as the sun came in on us and made us warm and happy we drank reasonable coffee. he heated the milk way too hot, but still the base product was pretty good. he told us that if ever someone from melbourne comes into his cafe and asks for a job he hires them! it was a good line.

then we had lunch at a place the coffee guy suggested to us called aunts and uncles, (which i think we all thought was called ants and ankles) and had a delicious meal of various sorts of eggs and extras and yummy banana pancakes with baked pears...oh yeah. at last.

after the show, in which we were all dealing with second night blues and the fact that bruce had left us for vancouver, helen, from the workshop, invited us all to go back to her place for a party. it was pretty crazy in her apartment, it was this mix of hippy and arty and chintzy, and some other friends of hers came too, a woman who ran a shop selling all the items that you would ever need to be a transvestite performer or sex-worker, an actor and a man called juan who ended up doing a portrait of simon in pencil. simon was rapt, we were bemused. it was all very fascinating.

jim and I skated today. it was cold, but there was no wind and the sun was shining, and so it was delicious on the ice. there were about a thousand school kids on the ice, and although it was necessary to keep a very careful look out for them, it was also pretty fun. one little girl totally made my day but saying to me as I skated past her..."you are a really good skater!" howzat!

i had a sensational lunch at an organic vegetarian place from the vegetarian guide that shelly gave me a few days ago: dahl; a chick-pea, spinach, carrot and prune stew and a gorgeous beetroot salad.

we had a fabulous pre-show warm-up with an alter-ego of Jim's: a fitness instructor called Margaret. she takes us through a few simple step routines, without the step. we're picturing a purple velour leisure suit and immaculate, big hair. she's a great fan of sex in the city, and is very encouraging. she's a lovely lady to have around.

the show went very well tonight, which was great, and we're booked out for the rest of the season. high-fives all round.

a few additional discoveries:

~ that there is such a thing as peanut butter cheesecake...on an oreo crust ~ tim-bits...these are the bits out of the middle of a doughnut that are saved and made into a tasty snack in their own right ~ ritters coconut-filled chocolate. oh my god. it is so good. ~ that many canadians actually believe that there is some substantial qualitative difference between tim horton doughnuts and krispy kreme doughnuts ~ here, as in europe, it is possible to get this beautiful prune yoghurt by danone. alas, not in australia ~ that the grain used in the salad the other night at dinner was quinoa and it is big here amongst the healthy-living types ~ that tim-bits are not really the saved bits out of the middle of doughnuts but a propaganda exercise because there's no such thing as the middle of a doughnut...is there?

discoveries

2008-01-25T15:35:52Z

i had a sensational lunch at an organic vegetarian place from the vegetarian guide that shelly gave me a few days ago: dahl; a chick-pea, spinach, carrot and prune stew and a gorgeous beetroot salad.

the show went very well tonight, which was great, and we're booked out for the rest of the season. high-fives all round.

a few additional discoveries:

~ that there is such a thing as peanut butter cheesecake...on an oreo crust ~ tim-bits...these are the bits out of the middle of a doughnut that are saved and made into a tasty snack in their own right ~ ritters coconut-filled chocolate. oh my god. it is so good. ~ that many canadians actually believe that there is some substantial qualitative difference between tim horton doughnuts and krispy kreme doughnuts ~ here, as in europe, it is possible to get this beautiful prune yoghurt by danone. alas, not in australia ~ that tim-bits are not really the saved bits out of the middle of doughnuts but a propaganda exercise because there's no such thing as the middle of a doughnut...is there?

in the snow

2008-01-24T02:31:44Z

it kept snowing for a couple of hours, and then it stopped, leaving quite a substantial covering of gorgeous powdery snow on everything. and because of the thermal blanket created by the clouds, it was actually much warmer than it has been in the last few days. (right now for example, at 9.47am the next day, it is twelve below zero again) so Jim and i went ice-skating. it was great, there was a bit of snow on the rink, but hardly any other people, and everything was really quiet and serene around us, so we had a fantastic skate. they play this pretty appalling commercial radio station out on the rink, which shuffles b-grade 70's and 80's hits, but there is occasionally a good song to glide along to, and otherwise it kind of makes me laugh, and it's also quite appropriate, that my slightly clumsy skating is accompanied by the likes of meatloaf.

then we all rugged up and went into the eaton centre (that lovely shopping centre where we're doing the play) for a dress rehearsal, in which we were accompanied not only by the usual amount of interested/bewildered/intrigued/concerned passers-by but also by a rather enormous hand-held wireless television camera and two other loud and insistent cameras. there also were a few sound issues in the dress rehearsal, and phillip (our sound engineer) had an amplifier blow up just after we finished. so it was ok, not great, but a fairly typical dress rehearsal: a matter of negotiating a whole lot of different and new things; trying to get to know this new space, trying to feel safe and familiar there, and how to best use it for the telling of the story.

our dressing rooms are in a theatre over the road and so one lovely thing is that we pass through a tiny little park as we walk to and fro, and it was covered in snow. a bit of gratuitous kicking and playing in the beautiful white crystals was indulged in, as well as a number of snowballs. on one trip through there was the very strange sight of a man shaving, in the middle of the snow, using a window of a building as a mirror.

the opening seemed to go well. i had a great conversation later at the opening night party with a guy called chad who'd been at the workshops. he really loved the play but also talked a lot (unprompted) about how well the play worked in the eaton centre, how appropriate it was, of all the possible venues in toronto (and he is a local) because it is one of the last places where there are public restrooms, where someone can buy a cup of coffee and sit on it for hours and not get moved on, where drug deals do happen and where there are offices and thus is frequented by business people. that was comforting, and does make me feel a little better about the space.

as it was bruce's last evening with us we went to a bar for one last drink and then walked home (in true back to back style) and had the most wonderful snowball fight in some ugly plaza filled with snow. got back to the foyer laughing and wet and said loving and snowy goodbyes. we'll all really miss him...but the snow must go on.

the frozen harbour

2008-01-23T02:39:56Z

out the window of the hotel early this morning, i saw that the harbour was frozen. it looked so strange, suspended instead of moving. everything was grey and still.

and now, it is snowing! the snow is flying past the window. the ground below is white and getting whiter. the sky is white. the harbour is even white, as the snow falls on the ice.

it's been a long time since i've been in a city when it's snowed, and it's just so beautiful. in london once, when I was at drama school i woke up to find everything white, and walked to school absolutely elated. and i was in venice once when it snowed. that was breathtaking and magical, and so so quiet.

today the play opens here in toronto. we spent the day yesterday at the eaton centre, a new chic shopping centre which is hosting the production. there are two lovely things about this shopping centre; no, three. first, it has a very high ceiling which is domed glass, cathedral style (apparently it was modelled on the galleria in milano...) it does let in a lot of natural light and gives the feeling of space and air. second, as you enter the south end of the centre there is a beautiful suspended sculpture of a flock of birds, i think they're geese, all in different gradated moments of flight. the third is that it's warm, and provides a haven from the icy cold.

it is apparently part of the PATH system here, which is apparently a long series of interconnecting pathways through the city, some underground, some through buildings, some through covered walkways, which is apparently there to help you get from place to place more easily in the winter. i think it's still evolving this PATH, maybe it's just been something the locals did, somehow worked out through necessity, and now the city has tried to formalise it...in any case there are no actual maps of the path and it doesn't appear on any other map.

similarly we only discovered yesterday that there's a tram line which runs really near our hotel up towards the city, thus obviating any need to traverse the wasteland of construction and freeways which lie between the harbour (us) and the city (everything else.)

we didn't know it was there because it runs underground and is not particularly clearly marked or signposted.

my developing theory is that toronto, like melbourne was up until about five years ago, is one of those hidden cities, a city which doesn't advertise or proclaim or possibly even theorise about its riches, but just gets on with things; and if you find a way in, make a connection, find an interesting thread, place or people, then you are fortunate. for the rest, you can shop in malls, eat atrocious food in food courts, drink bad coffee, sit by the harbour, watch the snow, and think.

other people's houses *

2008-01-21T16:25:10Z

one of the really great privileges and wonders of travelling is when you have the good fortune to be invited into other people’s houses. And I was so lucky, because tonight I was invited to have dinner at Shelly’s house. (That’s right, there’s no “e” in Shelly, just like there’s no “y” in Caroline.) I met shelly at the workshops we did here in Toronto over the last few days and we got chatting about life and dance and, well, food; and so she invited me over for a home-cooked meal with her vegetarian/vegan household.

it was such a lovely evening (apart from the cold. by the time i went out it had dropped to minus 14 and the wind-chill factor apparently took it down to about minus 24 degrees. mental. there was no-one on the streets, except me, tourist. mental.) I got the tram there, which was great, only they don’t call it a tram, they call it a streetcar, like in a streetcar named desire…The dinner, cooked by Jacob, was a delicious mushroom, barley and chickpea broth, accompanied by a salad of a grain I can’t remember the name of but which was really tasty, and an enormous leafy salad with grated beetroot and carrot and it had seeds in it and all sorts of other yummy organic things. Mmm it was all so good. Then we had chai and delicious apple crumble, and then we played Settlers of Catan!!! and all this interspersed with great conversation about life and the world.

and it turns out, oh it is such a small world, that Shelly is going to Scotland later this year to do the next SPCP (Solo Performance Commissioning Project) with Deborah Hay, which I did on Whidby island in 2000. The SPCP was a really wonderful two week residential workshop with Deborah, who is an amazing choreographer, solo performer and thinker, where she teaches and in a way bequeaths that group of participants a particular piece of choreography. Ours was called Boom, Boom, Boom. And although I don’t have cause to talk about it all that much, I got a great deal out of doing that workshop, both professionally and personally, and it influenced my practice in many ways.

so, connections were made, ideas and a meal were shared, and warmth and hospitality were given and very very gratefully received.

*other people's houses is the title of a beautiful song by paul kelly

twelve below zero

2008-01-21T03:30:28Z

i look out of the window of the hotel this morning and it's sunny, in a wintery sort of way. ah, i think, more ice-skating today, fabulous. but then i find out that it is minus 12 degrees outside, right now, here in downtown toronto, and that does not even include the wind-chill factor. heavens.

it has been very cold, and although i have my fabulous puffy coat lent to me by melanie, and my gorgeous cherry-red sheepskin cap lent to me by carolyn, i have still felt it. it tempts one into a sort of hibernatory state, but i've tried not to yield to that, because although toronto is, alas, not new york, it has its own charms.

and one of the main ones is ice-skating. jim and i have been ice-skating twice, before our workshops (as part of our time here back to back theatre have given a workshop, which has run over the last two days) and it has been so much fun. jim is quite good at skating, having been part of an ice-hockey team a long time ago. i am not so good, but a bit of misspent time at the ringwood ice-skating rink in my teens has meant that i can at least skate, move over the ice. i may look a little like a bow-legged flamingo, but i feel good. on the inside. the rink is so lovely. it's outdoor, and right beside the lake, and so there's water and sky and trees all around. and the skating is so freeing, like dancing and flying at the same time. very joyous.

yoga in the hotel room in the morning, ice-skating and then work. not so bad.

bye bye now

2008-01-18T03:58:16Z

on the last day in new york i felt compelled to force my complaining body out of bed, a prospect made only just bearable by the thought of nice coffee and croissant at ceci cela. so Jim and I went there and my croissant with bonne maman blueberry jam made things considerably sweeter.

then we walked to century 21, down church st again, talking about houses and renovations, as you do when you walk with a friend in downtown manhattan. met up with bruce inside century 21 for some serious shopping. century 21 is this amazing shop, like a designer dimmeys, full of last seasons and last years designer clothing at discount prices. bruce did very well, getting a couple of pairs of lovely trousers for 20 dollars each, but all the things which caught my eye in the chaotic and overflowing womens department were at least $150, and i just couldn't do it.

in the end i gave up and, having a deep need (and an even deeper imperative urged upon me by peter corrigan) went to the metropolitan museum on central park. I got there about 12.30 and stayed til it closed. my oh my, it was truly amazing. as amazing as everyone always says.

my favourite parts of the museum were all the rooms they have which are examples of a particular historical epoch. in many instances they have gone to a place and taken a whole room, more or less intact, and then re-built it at the Met. so there is not only the room itself, with its wood panelling or oak floorboards or plasterwork, and its window frames and doors, but also all the furnishings, light fittings, furniture and decorative pieces like vases, china bowls, even paintings. it is truly superb. you feel like you have been transported into a multitude of different places and times. for example, there is a bedroom from a venetian palazzo, an english reception room, a french drawing room, two rooms from a french house in the middle of paris, and this incredible studiolo, which was created in Gubbio in italy for the duke of Urbino in 1478. it is a small, irregular-shaped study which you can walk into, and the walls are entirely made up of intarsia, which is wood inlaid to create patterns or pictures. in this room, every panel creates a different picture through a window, as if the study looked out onto all these different views. it is absolutely amazing. i didn't even get to see all the rooms they have. and then there is an egyptian temple...the whole thing pretty much, in situ, as it would be, and an egyptian grave, and a room from an ancient roman villa.

it sounds so old-fashioned and indeed romantic, to say it, but i really felt the humanising vision and influence of this collection. it is a massive tribute to human endeavour and achievement; all of the wonderous works it enfolds in its walls and also what it is itself. i felt privileged and inspired to be there.

then i needed a lie down.

so i went back to the hotel and rested for a brief while and then we all went out to dinner with some of the other australians in new york for the conference. we went to John's Italian Restaurant on East 12th Street and had beautiful traditional italian food. i had homemade goats cheese ravioli with a mushroom sauce which was incredible and so were the italian greens with garlic, and apparently the veal parmigiana was excellent too.

then we sat around and talked for a while over a bottle or two of red and then after the waiters gently kicked us out we walked back downtown in the very bracing cold to James's bar because we really had to say goodbye to him, and come on, it was our last night in new york. he came to see the show on the last day, which was so great. he said it had been at least ten years since he had been to the theatre, and he loved it.

and everything was going fine at the bar, you know there were more photos, more crazy conversations, until i decided to have, as my last sort of cleansing drink (!), a margarita...not that i was messy...no not messy, but floaty, yes. yes, floaty. it was all lovely and eventually floated down the road to bed.

together with at least one other of the touring party wasn't too sparkly in the morning, but it was a travelling day, so a little bit of shush was fine. we got to toronto about 4, and from the plane we could see snow! very excitement!

after a lot of palaver in immigration, which, with my developing headache, was almost unbearable, we arrived at our hotel, the very luxurious westin harbour castle hotel. out of my fifteenth floor window i can see the harbour, the lake, lots of trees, some boats and quite a bit of snow!!!!

was sad to say goodbye to new york, we had a such a great time there, but toronto will have its own charms i'm sure. there are some photos us on site in new york in my gallery (thanks to bernadette sweeney our production manager) and a review of us today with a slide show of photos (just one of us) in the new york times in the theatre section. bye bye now.

big days in the big apple

2008-01-16T01:13:02Z

on Sunday morning Jim (he plays Alan in the show) and I got a quick coffee and pastry at ceci cela on spring st. (really really good pastries...a chocolate croissant to die for) and then caught the number 6 uptown. we got off at grand central so we could ooh and aaah at its utter magnificence. I had remembered it, but not the extent and detail of its beauty...all that marble, the windows, the chandeliers, and that amazing green roof with the constellations depicted on it. actually later on we went through the station again with the others and it was night. sonia said "wow it's just like the sky!" and it really is, only a rarefied version. what a fabulous place.

then we walked up 5th ave to central park. it was a crisp, sunny morning, with that pale wintery light, and as we passed the 5th ave presbyterian church the pavement was suddenly filled with people in their sunday best, including many ladies in full-length, intensely soft and flowing fur coats, one child dressed top to toe in white fur, and lots of men in hats.

we wandered through the bottom section of the park, past the ice-skating rink, which was just being prepared for skating. a guy was driving a machine over the top of the rink and clearing the top layer of icy snow off it, revealing pristine clear ice beneath. i suppose the ice rink was originally just created around a frozen pond in that spot in the park, and now it is a more controlled rink, but it is still so gorgeous, with trees all around it, and the sky-scrapers above, and there's a sort of open cafe area, and a raised terrace from which you can watch the action. it was all very relaxed, with a lovely feeling of sunday morning free time and space.

we then caught the number 1 line downtown to whitehall to do the show.

gerald, the pigeon was present, as well as twinkle-toes, a pigeon whose feet have turned the wrong way, so they point backward instead of frontward. very odd. Eddie was also there. he is one of the regulars at the ferry terminal, someone who rests in the warmth and bustle and relative safety of the space. at the end of the play, once the corporates have rushed off trying to solve their dependency issues elsewhere, gary and steve relax and hang out in the terminal for a few minutes. often they go and talk to eddie, and so in the second show of this lovely sunday eddie ended up taking a bow with us, which was so great.

i will be sorry to leave whitehall. it was beautiful, with great views of the city and the statue of liberty, it was a great place for the play and we all became friendly with the various people there, like all the regulars, the commuters, the staff of the coffee shop, the cleaners and all the security staff, cops and their dogs. so many of the people there were fascinated in what we were doing and so positive. some of the cleaners came to see the play, a couple of cops, and lots of the regular commuters, as well as other new yorkers. it was very special.

that night it was raining, and quite cold. there was talk of snow, but i only caught one glimpse of a thing which may well have momentarily been a snow flake before it melted into my coat. we had a function with other australian artists who are here for the arts conference, then we went out and found a place to eat which had excellent frozen margaritas, then later some of us went to another bar in the west village to meet some friends from home and then much later a few of us made our way through the rainy streets back to lovely james's bar on Lafayette near our hotel and played there for a while, which included a photo shoot of bruce (our director) playing a new york barman.

home sometime (but before dawn) on monday morning.

monday was naturally a rather more delicate day.

i quietly got up mid-morning and then went to visit orchard corsets and the famous jewish bra man. picked up a wacoal 34D for my friend and a couple of padded bras for myself as he advised me that that's what i needed for good shape and proportion. who am I to argue issues of breast aesthetics with a large, direct, straight down the line new yorkan hassidic jew?

went and got some dried nectarines and cinnamon babka from russ and daughters and then tenderly made my way over to soho to a wool shop, where i had my first real encounter with new york arrogance and attitude and then tried on the most beautiful orange coat in the known universe which is $425 and thus just tantalisingly in and out of reach.

shows went very well, had 70 people on the waiting list for the second show as word has well and truly got out. we had visitations from the new Yorker as well as New York magazine. all very good. eddie bowed again with us for the last time. i was teary. then we went on the ferry ourselves at last and saw the lady, the statue of liberty and then all the lights of manhattan. ended up at bread tribeca and had a cast and crew dinner of unbelievably beautiful olives, bread and pizzas.